For me CSS is the way to turn markup into user friendly document, and I beleive src and href should be under control as well.
Fortunately embedding of images and other files in page can be addressed via generated content and some CSS rendering engines already support CSS3 content:attr(src,url) indicating that there is requirement for this feature.
As to 'href' here CSS WG fails to address users' requirement in spite of fact that different persons raised this issue on several times and some CSS rendering engines already implemented CSS linking extensions (I mean -o-link and prince-link properties supported by Opera and Prince respectively).
These extensions proved to be very useful when formatting XML documents, but even in XHTML they provide useful functionality (especially from user CSS point of view).
Below is small markup example. The question is how cite attribute should be treated?
<blockquote cite="http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/intro.html#q6">
<strong>Richness.</strong> Providing authors with a rich set of rendering effects increases the richness of the Web as a medium of expression. Designers have been longing for functionality commonly found in desktop publishing and slide-show applications. Some of the requested rendering effects conflict with device independence, but CSS 2.1 goes a long way toward granting designers their requests.
</blockquote>
With CSS linking extension user can answer this question himself via user CSS:
blockquote {link:attr(cite);}
/* I want to view original text when I click quotation */
OR
blockquote:before {content:"Quoted from " attr(cite);display:block;link:attr(cite);}
/* I want to see link to original text before quotation */
OR
blockquote:after {content:"Quoted from " attr(cite);display:block;link:attr(cite);}
/* I want to see link to original text after quotation */
OR
blockquote {link:none;}
/* I hate when link is applied to whole block of text */
So give us functionality that we need, two interoperable implementations are already available (Opera and Prince).
--
_______________________________________________
Surf the Web in a faster, safer and easier way:
Download Opera 8 at http://www.opera.com
Powered by Outblaze